The Burj Khalifa's owner said Monday the observation deck of the world's tallest tower has been unexpectedly shut down, disappointing visitors and marring the spire's reputation just a month after it opened.Dubai had hoped the 2,717-foot (828-meter) skyscraper would be a major tourist draw. The Middle East city-state has promoted itself worldwide

The Obama team may get modest benefits from ending a five-year chill with Damascus but will find it hard, if not impossible to peel Syria way from hardline ally Iran and break the Arab-Israeli stalemate, analysts said.US President Barack Obama's administration said last week it submitted its nominee for ambassador to Damascus, the fruit of a year-long drive to engage Syria in a bid to promote Arab-Israeli peace

Palestinian officials demanded on Monday that any US-backed peace talks with Israel focus on border issues and be given a deadline of up to four months.Washington has proposed circumventing a dispute preventing the resumption of talks, stalled for more than a year since a war in Gaza, by reconvening in the form of "proximity talks" on an indirect basis, under closer US mediation

The Number two leader of Egypt's opposition Muslim Brotherhood and two other top figures have been arrested by police Monday in a dawn sweep targeting members of the nation's most powerful opposition group across the country.The arrests, part of an ongoing crackdown, come just as the group chose a new leadership and ahead of parliamentary elections set for October

The leader of Palestinian Islamist group Hamas met in Moscow Monday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for talks on efforts to reunify the two main Palestinian independence movements."We met to pursue our discussions, and our principal goal is to build on efforts brokered by Egypt to secure Palestinian unity," Lavrov told reporters at the start of talks with Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal

Premier Nouri al-Maliki said on Monday he has received assurances that judges will resolve a simmering row over who can stand in Iraq's general election before official campaigning starts on February 12.Around 100 lawmakers had gathered earlier at Parliament for an emergency session to debate a contentious decision to allow hundreds of candidates allegedly

Iran's top reformist leaders on Monday rejected the authorities' accusation that the opposition movement had links to foreigners and urged people to attend rallies on Thursday marking the 1979 Islamic revolution.The opposition is expected to revive anti-government protests at the February 11 events, raising fears of further clashes with the security forces

Prosecutors in Turkey are seeking life in jail for the father and grandfather of a girl who was buried alive for befriending boys, local judicial sources said Monday.The pair were arrested after the body of 16-year-old Medine Memi was found in a sitting position with her hands tied, in a hole in a chicken pen outside her house in Kahta town, Adiyaman province, 40 days after she went missing

The Gulf kingdom of Bahrain resumed torturing detainees in 2007 after about a decade of not engaging in the "scourge," US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report released Monday.As of late 2007, "torture is back in the repertoire of Bahrain's security services" the international watchdog said in the report

Under the watchful eyes of a white-coated doctor, two orderlies in scrubs sedate the patient on a paper-covered stainless steel table, then begin the procedure - trimming her vital hunting tools.One of the orderlies carefully snips the brown and white falcon's wicked, two-centimeter talons, then files them back to points. Twenty-one other falcons, their heads covered in small leather hoods

An exchange of mortar shells between Somali government forces and rebels killed at least nine civilians and wounded 14 others, a human-rights group said Monday.The clashes started late on Sunday and continued on Monday morning, the Elman Peace and Human Rights Organization said

Saudi Arabia's human rights commission has hired a lawyer to help a 12-year-old girl divorce her 80-year-old husband, the lawyer said, a move activists hope will lead to a ban on child marriages.Saudi Arabia, a patriarchal society that applies an austere version of Sunni Islam, has no minimum legal age for marriage

NATO commanders called on the Taliban to surrender as troops dug in Monday for a major assault on one of the last insurgent strongholds in southern Afghanistan, sending thousands of residents fleeing.The Taliban remained defiant as civilians of the Marjah plain accused the militia, which is leading an eight-year insurgency

Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Yanukovich on Monday pressed rival Yulia Tymoshenko to concede defeat after his slender victory in a presidential election that could tilt the ex-Soviet state back towards Moscow.With just over 97 percent of votes counted, official election figures gave Yanukovich a margin of 2.41 percentage points over Premier Tymoshenko

Police in central China have shut down a hacker training operation that openly recruited thousands of members online and provided them with cyber attack lessons and malicious software, state media said Monday.The crackdown comes amid growing concern that China is a center for internet crime and industrial espionage

A South Korean court Monday ordered Hyundai Motor chairman Chung Mong-Koo to pay almost $60 million in damages to his company for loss-making deals.The Seoul central district court, ruling on a damages suit brought by shareholders, said the Hyundai chairman must pay 70 billion won ($59.7 million) to compensate for losses caused to the company by his business decisions

The Burj Khalifa's owner said Monday the observation deck of the world's tallest tower has been unexpectedly shut down, disappointing visitors and marring the spire's reputation just a month after it opened.Dubai had hoped the 2,717-foot (828-meter) skyscraper would be a major tourist draw. The Middle East city-state has promoted itself worldwide

Labor Minister Botrous Harb said Monday that the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) should distance itself from political wrangling in order to turn this fund into an efficient entity that provides full services to all Lebanese.Speaking at a press conference to announce a two-day workshop on social security on the 11th and 12th of this month

The consolidated balance sheet of commercial banks operating in Lebanon shows that total assets reached $115.2 billion at the end of 2009, up 22.3 percent from the end of 2008, as reported by Lebanon This Week, the economic publication of the Byblos Bank Group. Private sector deposits totaled $95.8 billion, up 23.1 percent from the end of 2008

Telecommunications Minister Charbel Nahas pledged on Monday to provide all the facilities required to make Lebanon and especially Beirut a city center for all broadcasters' studios which have the capacity of providing the best technologies and most modern techniques."Lebanon will make every effort in order to transform Beirut to an open city for broadcasters

A Filipina domestic worker killed her employer's sister and injured the woman's seven-year-old daughter with a kitchen knife in the town of Ain Saadeh, the state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported on Monday.The Filipina housekeeper, who was not identified, stabbed to death Rose Saad, 48, and injured her niece Rosy Marie, who was hospitalized

Sidon Municipality is preparing to lay the foundation stone for its first ever medical waste treatment center this week.The project, sponsored by the Spanish Embassy and funded by the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), will cost around 800,000 euros (around $1,095,500) and cover an area of about 600 meters

Spanish and Lebanese officials celebrated on Saturday the launching of an apiculture (beekeeping) project in Akkar.The center in Deir Dalloum, Akkar, was opened in the presence of Spanish Ambassador to Lebanon Juan Carlos Gafo, Economy and Trade Minister Mohammad Safadi, Javier Gila from AIDA Association, the research and management team of the Apiculture Department of the Safadi Foundation

During his first visit in Lebanon as president of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), Antonio Cassese made the most of the opportunity to highlight the major issues concerning international criminal courts of law. As former president of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, the Italian jurist knows his subject

A Canadian court on Monday set a tentative June extradition hearing for Canadian-Lebanese national Hassan Diab, arrested 15 months ago for his alleged role in a 1980 Paris bombing that killed four. The Ontario Superior Court will firm the dates on Friday after lawyers verify that witnesses will be available for three-week hearing. The Crown sought more time to allow France to gather new evidence

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblatt said on Monday that allowing the employees of public institutions to run for office in the municipal elections might lead to the politicization of municipal and development work. He wrote ion his party's Al-Anbaa newspaper that he did not want to attack the employees, but instead wanted to avoid politicizing the municipal councils

The United Nations Interim Force for Lebanon (UNIFIL) Director of Political and Civil Affairs Milos Strugar stressed Monday that all parties did not seek war and were committed to a halt of violations. "UNIFIL did not notice any unusual movements and all parties confirmed that they did not seek war and were committed to halt violations and thus if political will remains that way, calm will prevail," Strugar said

The Internal Security Forces arrested on Monday on the Zouk Mosbeh highway, east of Beirut, an individual charged with several arrest warrants for drug dealing and armed robberies. A statement by the ISF directorate said Monday security forces arrested a man identified as A.Z. for attempting acrobatic moves on his motor bike and endangering his life and that of other citizens

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri will inaugurate the 63rd World Newspaper Congress, World Editors Forum and Info Services Expo 2010, in early June, organizers said on Monday.The events, organized by the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) and hosted by Lebanese newspaper An-Nahar

One of the world's oldest dialects, which traces its origins to tens of thousands of years ago, has become extinct after the last person to speak it died on a remote Indian island.Boa Sr, the 85-year-old last speaker of "Bo," was the oldest member of the Great Andamanese tribe, R.C. Kar, deputy director of Tribal Health in Andaman, said Friday

Making theater out of historical tragedy is a difficult balancing act. Too much focus on a small-scale human story can belittle terrible acts of war or genocide taking place in the background, making them seem merely metaphorical exteriorizations of the characters' stormy inner lives. The vast genre of slushy WWII dramas manifests this peril

The American people and their openness to Muslim communities will in many ways determine the success of US President Barack Obama's global engagement initiative, which he launched on his inauguration day a year ago by calling for a "new way forward" with Muslims. Change will depend in large part on how Americans think, and it is therefore crucial to understand American perceptions of Muslims and Islam

Do nations have psychological processes - even Freudian processes, such as collective egos that can be injured, and repressed guilt feelings that can well up from the collective unconscious - just as individuals do? I believe that they do

They know it in Paris, Rome and Madrid. There is a big security hole to the south of Europe, the existence of which is confirmed by ongoing hostage crises involving citizens from France, Italy and Spain.The hostages are being held by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which has celebrated its third anniversary with a wave of kidnappings